Kim Scott is the author of Radical Candor, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller!

Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity.

Bad bosses make people miserable. They also kill innovation, stifle growth, increase costs, and create instability. Well-meaning people become bad bosses without even realizing it.

Great bosses have relationships with each of their employees. This relationship is a source of growth and stability for individuals and companies. Anywhere I’ve observed a great boss, I’ve seen the same three principles for approaching this relationship play out. I’ll describe these principles mostly by telling stories, some successes, but also plenty of mistakes—mostly mine. Some are funny, some are painful, and many are plain embarrassing, but they’re all instructive.

Even if your company is nothing like the places I’m describing (Google, Apple, Twitter) and your own boss is a control freak or petty tyrant or simply useless, you can still adopt these three basic principles and become a great boss yourself. I’ll explain how, and why you’ll be happy you did.

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Kim and Russ Laraway founded Candor, Inc. to help people have better relationships at work and do the best work of their lives. Their many years of management experience at Google, Apple, Twitter and other successful companies have made them experts on some of the best and worst practices of managers. At Candor, Inc., they are building a digital management coach that will help you know what to do when, improving your processes instead of replacing them with software.